Let me start by telling you a little bit about myself. I have been a lifelong Mac user. My first computer ever was a Mac LCIII, and since then I've owned several Macs. Currently I use a 1.33gHz 12 inch PowerBook. Needless to say I have quite a bias. However, something has changed recently in my life: at my new job we use PCs exclusively. So what does this life-long Mac user think about his first real experience with Windows? Well as you can guess from the title of this post, I don't like it very much at all. Now I could talk about all the obvious reasons why Macs are superior, (UNIX based, no viruses, etc.) but everyone knows all those reasons already. What I've noticed from hours of PC use is several subtle details, the little things that make big differences. Perhaps I'm nitpicking, and if you think I am please let me know, but each and every one of these issues has caused me a good deal of annoyance. And with that I bring you, Why Windows is Worse: The Minor Details.
1. When you click on a link in a word document it opens that link in the same window
- not only does it open the webpage in the same window, but the word document then gets minimised. Could this be any more confusing? So I'm in Word and I clink on a link, suddenly the website is right in front of me but not in a new window, and I'm thinking, where did my word document go?
- this is especially annoying if you're working in a document full of links with instructions for what to do once you click on those links becuase you need the webpage and the word document open at the same time.
2. Search is
EXTREMELY SLOW - It can literally take 30 minutes to search the contents of a large folder. Maybe I've been spoiled by spotlight but this is rediculous.
- I know there's Google desktop search but I'm just discussing what comes with the OS becuase in an office you can't really install extra software on the computers so you've got to deal with what they give you.
3. Internet Exploror doesn't have "Find Again"
- What were they thinking? How simple would this be to impliment? And it's so usefull. For you PC users out there who don't know, in Safari (and Firefox) if you search for something within a webpage and then close the seach menu you can do the same exact search again by simply typing apple-g. So fucking useful.
4. You can't use shashes in filenames.
5. When a program freezes and you drag another window in front of it, it leaves trails
- This is kinda psychadelic and cool, but really it's just stupid and annoying. It only adds to the confusion and annoyance that is present whenever a program freezes.
6. Double clicking on an application opens a new instance of that application
- Maybe this is just a matter of personal taste, but I seriously don't need my computer to behave like that. When I double click on Word I want it to take me to Word, whatever state it may be in. That means if it's already open, take me to the open window.
- Applications all have internal options for opening new windows, so why do I need multiple instances running when I can just have several windows of the same app open?
- Also, when I quit I quit only the individual instance of that app, and not the whole thing. So if I have multiple word documents open, and I need to quit everything, I have to close each window individually instead of simply typing apple-q and closing all the windows at once.
7. When I close Word with a large amount of text in the clipboard it asks me if I want to keep it or discard it.
- This is just a waste of my time. When has anyone's computing experience ever been harmed by having a large amount of text in the clipboard? I just can't even begin to comprehend the reasoning that lead to this "feature" being implimented.
8. Closing all the windows of an app quits the app
- Now some Mac apps do do this, but only apps like System Preferences. On Windows all apps do this, and it is annoying. For an app like Outlook this makes no sense at all. I love that on my Mac I can close mail and know that it's still running, that it's going to make noise when I get a new e-mail, and that its dock icon will keep me informed of how many e-mails I have. On Windows you're done checking your e-mail, you close the Outlook window and the app quits.
9. You have to press ctrl-alt-delete to login.
- Now call me crazy but why can't the computer just go straight to the login screen? There is no point for this extra step besides wasing my time.
10. Inconsistant drag 'n drop.
- It just doesn't work as well on a PC. On the Mac you can drag almost anything and drop it almost anywhere. On the PC, when it even works at all, it doesn't work nearly as well.
- For a more detailed comparison of Mac Vs. PC drag 'n drop go here.
Well there you have it, ten little details that make the PC user experience a lot worse. If you have any thoughts, please leave a comment.
